Tuesday, January 18, 2011

NHL All-Star Wide Open

I have to put my baseball pride aside and tout the NHL All-Star Game. It’s a major event surrounded by a monster weekend January 28-29-30 in Raleigh. Capitol Broadcasting Company is a major media partner with the NHL and City of Raleigh to promote the event(s).

Friday night concert (3 Doors Down), Saturday skills competition, the game on Sunday. Those major happenings are wrapped in the three-day Fan Fair and All-Star Wide Open in downtown Raleigh. Thirty bands on three stages, a 5K, ice skating, snow making, ice carvings, player autographs and food. Like I said, a monster weekend.

While this gives everyone something to do in the dead of winter, I’m more interested in the global notoriety that comes with this game. From Montreal to Moscow, hockey fans will be hearing about the Triangle. The game is televised in 150 countries. The NHL has issued over 300 press credentials. (If you include the US and Canadian TV crews, there are 450 people in the media contingent!)

Beyond the media attention, the event fills up our hotels and restaurants. The economic impact of the All-Star Game in other host cities has hovered around ten million dollars.

Like I said, a monster weekend: It creates worldwide attention for our community…brings all of us together for three days of entertainment…has a significant economic impact.

Read the media releases. Check out the web site. And make your plans for All-Star Wide Open.

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I'm VP of the Sports Group at Capitol Broadcasting Co. My office is in the Durham Bulls Athletic Park - a great place to work. (And wonderfully distracting!)

CBC owns the Bulls, operates four sports-talk radio stations in Raleigh and wralSPORTSfan.com. Our radio brands are The Fan, Buzz Sports Radio, The Ticket and ESPN Deportes. We are a partner with Learfield Sports at Wolfpack Sports Properties, and our TV stations connect viewers with NBC, Fox and ACC sports. Our radio stations are the RDU flagships for NC State, Duke Univ, the NHL Carolina Hurricanes and the Bulls.

We even built a basketball court at our American Tobacco complex in Durham and a play area for grown-ups! There's a brewery in the ballpark, too. It's work. It's play. I can't always tell the difference!?!